Hotel Stories from Sandy

Having lived in the Big Apple for nearly 22 years before relocating to a more bucolic environment, I was immensely concerned about how the city was faring during Hurricane Sandy. On one level, New York City will always be my home, since I spent my formative years working and living there. On the other hand, as a Jersey girl (I spent my first 21 years in the state) I was equally as concerned about friends and family there.

Up in the Catskills, in Woodstock, where I now live, I lost power up for four days, but suffered no major damage. I knew I was lucky, and that portions of New York City and New Jersey were in far more dire circumstances than mine. So this week, with my power restored, I talked to New York hoteliers about what life was like in the eye of the storm. Here’s a snapshot.

Three Radisson properties lost power during the storm, said Susan Mason, senior regional director, Radisson franchise operations, Americas. The properties, in New Jersey’s Freehold and Piscataway and Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge, were powerless for anywhere from four to six days. Although there was no heat, thankfully temperatures had yet to drop.

“There were a lot of people whose homes were destroyed and they were staying at the hotels because they just wanted a bed and a room to sleep in,” says Mason. “They had nothing.” The two New Jersey hotels were also accommodating state utility workers who were happy to be sleeping in beds rather than inside their trucks.

As bleak as those circumstances were, Mason said small acts of human kindness prevailed. At the Freehold property, utility workers used a small generator each morning to serve coffee to all hotel guests. “They made coffee for everybody who was there,” she says.

Westin New York Grand Central General Manager Ed Maynard found his hotel as one of the epicenters of storm relief. Power had gone out from 39th Street all the way downtown, and pedestrians were walking north toward the lights. “People must have known there was power north of 39th Street,” Maynard says, “and they happened to come into the hotel because we were the first point where people came up on 42nd Street.”

Maynard immediately surmised that the hotel would be inundated with both room requests and more generalized pleas for help. “We recognized the need and my team and I can up with an idea: Let’s open up our meeting space and make it into a charging station,” he says, adding that staff added six- and 12-foot power strips along banquet tables to configure a portable office with water and snacks.

“We just told people who came through the door, ‘If you need someplace to go we have a meeting room open for you on the third floor. Please feel free to go there,’” he says. “We had 50 to 75 people in there at a given time.” Maynard and his staff realized how important it was to keep the space open, which they did, for a full week.

“We were inundated with people walking in the door asking for rooms,” he says, adding that there were also guests already checked in who were unable to leave because of the storm. Ensuring that the hotel didn’t become overbooked, he says, was more of an art than a science. “It was sort of like gambling to try and figure out how many you can commit to by wondering how many arrivals and departures are really going to happen,” he says.

The hotel staff continues to help those impacted by Hurricane Sandy wherever and whenever it can. “I just took another reservation from somebody who emailed me from her office,” says Maynard. “She said, ‘I still have no power and my kids have to go back to school and still haven’t had a warm bath.’ Of course I made sure that we were able to get her in.”

For its part, a sister Starwood property, the Sheraton New York, has also been accommodating New Yorkers in need. “We were and still are continuously getting local displaced residents,” says Kai Fischer, the property’s director of sales and marketing. “Frankly, as people’s tolerance level begins to wane, their focus on finding alternate housing becomes a little bit more important as a priority.”

The hotel’s staff did help, in ways large and small, says Fischer. “We had a cute story where a couple had just getting engaged,” he says, adding that the mother of the prospective bride called from Australia frantically trying to find someone who could help her send a special bottle of Champagne to the couple’s room. To assist from afar, the VIP manager of the Sheraton New York’s Club Lounge arranged a special delivery to the room. The couple got engaged in Central Park on Tuesday, a day before it closed because of the Northeaster scheduled to hit the city on Wednesday.

As tragic as the effect of the storm was, Fischer says its aftermath brought out the best in people. “In some ways it showed our team what we could really accomplish,” he says. “There was a sense of pride in the opportunity to help people during a very traumatic time. And it helped energize all of us.”

Claudette Covey is executive editor covering hotels and New York City for TravelPulse.com.

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